The Le Mars Community softball team opened their postseason with a rain-soaked 9-1 win over Carroll in five innings on Thursday night.
Le Mars was coming into a matchup where they were heavily favored. The Bulldogs were coming off one of their best regular seasons ever with 30 wins while their opponents from Carroll had won one game all season. Le Mars head coach Brooke Berkenpas had to remind the team that one bad game would be all it takes to end the season.
Thankfully, the Bulldogs were on right away scoring four runs in the bottom of the first. After that, they had to sit and wait out a lightning delay for a half hour that seemed to halt that momentum. Le Mars did not score for the next three innings following the delay. Coach Brooke Berkenpas says it is tough to stop and start your energy after getting a game resumed.
A large chunk of Le Mars’ runs came thanks to getting baserunners on and taking extra bases on throwing and fielding errors. Coach Berkenpas was happy that her team looked to be aggressive in taking those free bases from mistakes.
Le Mars now sets themselves up for a regional semifinal with Sergeant Bluff-Luton in the fifth meeting between the two teams. After four losses to the Warriors this year, the Bulldogs will be hungry for revenge. Coach Berkenpas says it will take a complete game to advance to the region final.
First pitch between the Bulldogs and Warriors is set for 7:00 PM in Sergeant Bluff on Saturday night. KLEM will broadcast the game with an audio only stream on the KLEM Radio YouTube page. You can listen to that stream by clicking here.
